Tuesday, May 14, 2024
5/14/2024
Medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), including methadone, buprenorphine, and naltrexone, have been shown to be effective at promoting recovery and reducing high-risk behaviors (e.g., injecting) and cost-effective. Limited access to providers who are trained and willing to prescribe MOUD remains a major barrier to care. Advance practice registered nurses (APRNs) and physician assistants (PAs) who are X-waivered to prescribe buprenorphine can help fill this provider gap. However, many APRN and PA students, including those at our institution, currently receive little education on caring for patients with opioid use disorder (OUD) and therefore do not meet the 24-hour CARA and SUPPORT Act licensing requirements to prescribe buprenorphine upon graduation. By expanding our existing medical school X-waiver curriculum to our APRN and PA programs, we will promote knowledge around evidence-based practices for this patient population, increase the number of providers able and willing to prescribe buprenorphine, and increase confidence and interprofessional collaboration in treating OUD. We propose to address this critical gap in training by developing an innovative curriculum with four key goals: 1) expand and tailor our previously developed medical school curriculum to APRN and PA students; 2) decrease provider stigma by developing didactics that specifically address barriers to treatment, including topics such as criminalization of addiction, structural racism and its effects on addiction treatment, and disparities in MOUD receipt by race; 3) expand opportunities for interprofessional clinical observership throughout Michigan in virtual (telehealth) and/or in-person settings; and 4) build supervisor capacity by expanding X-waiver training amongst interested clinical preceptors and teaching faculty and match students with waivered faculty for elective clinical experiences. The initial phase will focus on tailoring the medical school X-waiver curriculum for primary care nurse practitioner students (family and adult-gerontology) and PA students by adding the 16 hours of training beyond the initial 8 hours developed by the medical school. Then, we will further expand the curriculum to other APRN programs (acute care, midwifery, and pediatric programs). To assess progress, we will collect student feedback on new educational initiatives, assess student comfort, knowledge, and stigma regarding OUD treatment, and track the number of graduating students and faculty members who are X-waivered each year. We anticipate by September 2024, we will have trained 300 APRNs, 136 PAs, and 510 medical students who will meet the DATA waiver, CARA, and SUPPORT Act licensing requirements upon graduation.
HHS’ Tracking Accountability in Government Grants System (TAGGS) website provides access to detailed descriptions of grants, loans, aggregated direct payments and other types of financial assistance awarded by the HHS Operating Divisions (OPDIVs) and the Office of the Secretary Staff Divisions (STAFFDIVs).
